G – Graduation

It is the finale. The final curtain. It is your graduation call. The annual graduation ceremony devoted to celebrating an important point in students’ lives. Examinations are finally over, scruffiness is replaced with fancy clothes and parents admire their children for reaching the finishing line of a long marathon. Officials’ speech made everyone glow, students beamed with self-fulfilment, parents realised that their support – both financial and emotional – was worthwhile, and the faculty have the satisfaction of successfully bringing another group through the system. Freezing this moment in time has an emotional effect. Everyone on the roll call will go on to have a life of joy and pain, of positive and negative experiences. While graduates throw their caps in the air – knowing that they will soon come down to earth – heads filled of thoughts of what the future entails. Loss, hardship and frustration will be mixed with awards, publications and job offers. The future always seems more promising than the present, and the present on graduation day is pretty good – even if it is not quite the reality.

H – Happy Birthday Monash

It’s hard to believe that Monash is only turning 20, as old as so many of us (shout out to all ’98 babies). There were balloons, party hats, face-painting and henna art, as well as food served by local chefs. Satay-in-a-cup was a hit among the adults, while the children satisfied their sweets craving with fluffy cotton candy. The 1 Malaysia Drum Symphony set the mood for the evening with its amazing fusion of Malay, Chinese and Indian drums. Keeping up the beat was the main highlight of the night, popular homegrown singer-songwriter and rapper SonaOne got the crowd screaming and bopping along to his tunes. Spinning foot-tapping and dance inducing hits was DJ Bate, who had everyone grooving late into the evening.

I – Internet

We pretty much get through our days in university only because of the existence of the Internet. Hey, I wasn’t talking about scrolling through Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, I was talking about using the Internet to access notes on Moodle and research on tutorial questions (I’m not sure about y’all but I use the Internet for the latter *wink*). Heartbreak is when you’re leading in Kahoot, suddenly a blue bar appears on your screen – ‘Slow internet connection, you may experience some delays’, such disappointment even the Internet decides to fail on you. Things just get worse when Uni is bombarded with thousands of new students. Countless times I’ve heard students shouting at each other, ‘Oi, laptop cannot connect leh, gg cannot submit assignment liao!’ (hinting at Monash to upgrade their systems). When it comes to Internet, all we hear are the complaints. We should definitely be thankful that at least computers in the library have stable internet connection, so learn to stop whining and use the computers provided (although whining seems to be in the blood of teenagers).

Article by Divyah